


we need to talk [error! message not sent]

by orphan_account



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Post-Squip, idk if this is ooc or not, its one hundred per cent just me projecting onto michael, just me working out all my shit in a probably not healthy way, self indulgent vent fic pls ignore, so maybe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-04-17 07:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14184168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Michael didn’t want to hate Jeremy for getting the SQUIP. He didn’t want to hate Jeremy for leaving him for weeks on end to fend for himself.But it was sort of way easier to just blame him anyway.And Michael knew that he shouldn’t. But he would go crazy if there wasn’t a simple solution for him to peg this on.~in which michael subconsciously fucks up his own life in the interest of avoiding those heavy™ topics w jeremy





	1. whatever that fucking gnash song is

**Author's Note:**

> michael is the whiteboard. the light is my issues. i am the projector. have fun

Michael was stuck in a strange place somewhere in between hating and loving Jeremy. It wasn’t the sort of cliche love-hate relationship — that much was obvious from the way his heart burst each time he made Jeremy laugh (or when he smiled, or when he looked at him, or when he was just _there_ ) — he hated that he _did_ love Jeremy.

Wait.

Did he love Jeremy?

Well, obviously yeah, but. You know.

Like _that_.

He supposed that at one time this would have been a much more comfortable revelation. But then Jeremy had to go and decide that hanging with Michael for the rest of his high school years just wasn’t enough and went and flipped their whole lives upside down.

Michael didn’t want to hate Jeremy for getting the SQUIP. He didn’t want to hate Jeremy for leaving him for weeks on end to fend for himself — that was all the SQUIP’s fault. But the SQUIP was dead now. Should he blame Rich for convincing Jeremy to get the SQUIP? Should he blame himself for _not_ convincing Jeremy to get it? Should he blame the makers of the SQUIPs themselves?

It was easier to blame Jeremy.

And Michael knew that he shouldn’t. But he would go crazy if there wasn’t a simple solution for him to peg this on.

So much for that. Turns out, hating your best friend (who you’re also in love with?) is anything but simple.

Michael probably (read: _definitely_ ) had some issues with emotional vulnerability. Or at least, if he didn’t before, he did now. It was all well and good to pretend that he was the happy guy all the time and that he wasn’t now constantly engaging in critical warfare with himself every time he had a conversation with his best friend, but if he didn’t open up to someone soon he was probably going to implode. The last heart-to-heart he had with someone (if you don’t count the make-believe therapy sessions he had with himself inside his head) was before Jeremy even got rid of the SQUIP, when Mr Heere showed up half naked at his doorstep and (quite rudely, now that he thought about it — he was just trying to have a good cry, was that so much to ask?) made him confront his roundabout way of getting back at Jeremy; which, at that point, he wouldn’t have noticed anyway — what sort of lame comeback to getting hurt is to try to ditch someone who _already_ ditched you?

Did he want Jeremy to get hurt the same way he did? Well, for now let’s say that before Mr Heere recruited him to get his shit together, it was leaning on a _kinda_.

Michael didn’t know what he wanted anymore. He would _like_ for Jeremy to know how he felt when he ditched him, but for that, Michael would have to do one of two things: become fully emotionally naked in front of the guy whose his relationship with now was based off of plucking their eyes out to ignore the elephant in the room, or to, you know. Hurt him back.

One seemed a lot more comfortable to Michael. The other seemed more feasible. Neither proved to be actually possible. There was no way he was laying his feelings out on the ground all for Jeremy to see, no way. Fuck that.

Oh, and also he didn’t want to hurt Jeremy. Right. That, too.

Christ.

So, cool, _now_ on top of both loving and hating Jeremy at the same time, he could add himself to the list of people he wanted dead — how dare he wish any sort of harm, especially emotional harm, on his best friend? _Especially_ after what he went through?

Yeah, well, fuck Jeremy for getting the SQUIP in the first place. For leaving him behind. For making Michael fall in love with him. He could go rot in hell.

Michael sighed.

He wasn’t supposed to have these thoughts. He wasn’t _allowed_ to.

Was he? 

Fuck.

This was so complicated.

Let’s review: Michael loved Jeremy, but wished he had the guts to hate him. And yet, Michael hated Jeremy, but knew he should at least try loving him. So.

This was getting nowhere.

He decided to distract himself with season two of _Crazy Ex Girlfriend_. Save him with your problems, Rebecca Bunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> v short and v v open ended bc im still not sure if im gonna continue this or not?? if i do, the chapters probably won't really make any coherent narrative sense and will be more of just wtvr feeling i wanna project onto michael and/or jeremy on that particular day so...if u want smth like that lmk? bc otherwise itll just be this
> 
> also plugging my tumblr.....follow me @ king--gary.tumblr.com  
> i dont post a shit ton of bmc but i reckon its still a hoot
> 
> thank you for reading!!


	2. was rogue one even all that good, anyway?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is set in 2016 for no reason other than Bc I Say So

Michael didn’t know where to put his hands. It was a small thing, really, ultimately inconsequential, yet every position he trialled for more than two seconds seemed wrong. Out of place. 

On the table?

No.

In his lap?

Weird.

Propping up his chin?

Awkward.

What’s the time again?

Michael pulled his phone out, coincidentally giving his hands a much needed respite, as he checked the time. 1:52 PM. He was meeting with Jeremy in the food court at two. Why on Earth did he come so early?

His hands were playing with his phone now, spinning it around between his fingers. Probably a bad idea, considering it increases the chance of it flying out of his hands by 100%, meaning he’ll have to go pick it up. And that would be awkward. 

He continued to spin it. 

He wasn’t really sure where this all came from. He’s pretty sure people’s stares didn’t always seem to bore down on the back of his neck like they were doing now. People didn’t used to stare at him this much. Why were they staring now?

He shifted in his hoodie, adjusting it slightly and pulling it down. Did that make it bunch up weird at his waist? Were his rolled up sleeves bunched up weirdly?

God. Where the fuck did this all come from? He was pretty sure he’d never cared this much about how his jumper fell on his body before. 

He checked the time. 1:53 PM.

And where the fuck was Jeremy?

He breathed out through his nose, trying to calm himself down. His leg, which he didn’t notice was bouncing rapidly until now — great, did that make him look nervous? — was planted firmly on the ground with one of his hands resting on his knee, just for good measure. 

It wasn’t as if he’d never been early to meet with Jeremy before. He’d had certainly showed up much earlier than he had now. Hell, there was one time he’d waited nearly half the damn day because of a whole mess of things — Jeremy sleeping in, picking what to wear, convincing his dad to let him go out for the day, missing _two_ buses — and in all those times he’d felt completely fine. He couldn’t really remember a time where he’d felt as… _fidgety_ as he did right now. 

Well, it was probably important that it was the first time they’d ever really hung out outside of school since Jeremy got back from the hospital. 

But it wasn’t as if they’d never dealt with heavy stuff before. This wasn’t the first time they’d tried to ease back into the swing of things. 

Jeremy’s mum stuck out like a sore thumb in Michael’s memory. Well, more specifically, her leaving. But even then, the whole thing didn’t leave him with the hairs on the back of his neck standing up straight whenever someone so much as glanced near him. So what was different now?

In the back of his mind, Michael could just put his finger on it — but it left a bad taste in his mouth just thinking about it, so he avoided it at all costs. 

His leg was bouncing again. 

It was around then that he saw Jeremy’s fluffy mop bounce around in confusion, looking for him from the other side of the food court. 

It almost felt wrong seeing him someplace outside of school, outside of the hospital, like he had become this ghost that could no longer wander the physical plane. But as he stood up and walked over to him, each step made Jeremy more and more corporeal in Michael’s mind, and that urge to fidget and refusal to sit still faded as he reached him.

“Hey, man,” he greeted. 

Jeremy let out a small “Hey,” behind a tired smile, and that was it for a few seconds. 

This kinda sucked. 

Normally, if Michael had something on his mind, he could always trust hanging out with Jeremy to make it disappear. The familiarity and comfortable routine, that feeling of safety knowing that everything came back to Jeremy could always put him at ease and make him ignore whatever issue he probably shouldn’t be ignoring. But when that issue was the fact that that feeling of safety and familiarity was gone, that the automatic, synced nature of their friendship didn’t spark anymore, was he really to blame if he didn’t particularly feel like seeing Jeremy at the moment?

That didn’t really mean much if he was already here at the mall with him, though. Standing right in front of him. But he kind of did feel slightly at ease, if not for the fact that it didn’t seem like people were staring as much anymore. 

But he still kept his distance. He needed a different Jeremy to go to. Like, one that didn’t look like him. And also just wasn’t Jeremy. 

Another friend — _that’s_ the word. 

This really sucked.

“So, movie?” Jeremy asked, breaking Michael out of his thoughts. 

A movie was pretty much the only level of social interaction Michael could handle with Jeremy right now. Just two hours of dark silence pretending to be completely focused on something else.

“Yeah,” Michael nodded, and they started their way to the cinemas. 

It was probably when the movie was first announced, back in 2014, that Michael and Jeremy had originally planned that they would go see _Rogue One_ together when it finally came out. Not only would they see it on opening night, but they would make sure to go to any advanced screenings they could manage, whether they be at midnight or not. They’d planned to do this for every _Star Wars_ movie that got released in the next however many years or so, too, of course. 

It’s just that they hadn’t planned on Jeremy being in the hospital at around the same time the movie hit theatres. 

He couldn’t say he was disappointed, but Michael didn’t exactly expect their streak to be broken before it was even established. 

As they walked into the homey lobby of the cinemas, that familiar smell of popcorn filling the air, neither of them paid any attention to the larger than life poster of Jyn Erso staring off into the distance, filling up a good quarter of the back wall. Michael couldn’t tell you if he saw Jeremy purposefully avoiding her eyes before sighing, almost resolutely. 

“Let’s watch _Sing,_ ” Jeremy suggested, sounding more upbeat than he seemed.

Michael blinked. An animated movie starring a talking koala was certainly more his speed at the moment. “I thought you said you didn’t want to betray _Zootopia_?”

Jeremy scoffed. “Believe me, nothing will ever beat _Zootopia_.”

“In terms of what? Furry movies?”

Jeremy smiled. “Shut up. I’m just seeing this so I can say definitively that _Zootopia_ is better. Because it is.”

Michael shrugged. “I don’t know, your opinion might be swayed…” He smiled at Jeremy as he went to buy the tickets, and for a second he could believe that everything was fine. 

They didn’t need to talk about anything. They were just going to watch a movie. Everything was fine. 

He ignored Jyn’s stares as they passed her, making their way to the next showing of _Sing._


	3. a SQUIP only costs $400 and one, or more, healthy mental state(s)

It was an understatement for the ages, but Michael didn’t know how to explain it any other way: his and Jeremy’s relationship was in sort of a _weird_ place after the whole SQUIP incident.

Obviously. They didn’t know how to deal with this. There wasn’t a multitude of WikiHow articles on how to pick up a friendship of twelve years after a computer chip in a pill…let’s say _halted_ it for a few weeks. No YouTube tutorials, or people complaining about it with solidarity on Yahoo!Answers. Michael knew, he’d checked.

He squinted at the time displayed in little black numbers in the corner of his phone screen. 1:38 AM. Jesus Christ. He was supposed to be picking up Jeremy in the morning, too. Which no doubt would be a joyous ride filled to the brim with bated breaths and Michael not being sure whether or not he should bring something from the whole _situation_ up, or if he was fabricating this whole awkward air in his mind and Jeremy was actually fine with everything. Either way, they didn’t exactly talk like they used to.

Michael wasn’t even sure how to greet him in the morning anymore. Well, at least not without analysing every little movement he made. And every movement Jeremy made in response. Was he being too casual? Should he be more concerned about Jeremy? Should they both be acting like nothing really happened? Or was it better to just go back to the way things used to be?

He couldn’t even remember how things used to be. He’d racked his brain, but apparently (of course) he hadn’t had the foresight to remember the trivial stuff like how they said hello to each other or how they laughed and teased when the other made a joke. It was like he was starting his relationship with Jeremy over from scratch again, and not being able to find the right word or the right position or the right glance was just making everything that much more awkward for himself.

He also couldn’t remember ever overthinking anything this much. There was a first for everything, he supposed.

Michael didn’t remember falling asleep but he guessed he must have at some point because he was suddenly with Jeremy in some unfamiliar room, but maybe he saw it in some movie or TV show, and they were siting on a couch eating the veggie burgers he’d had for dinner the night before. They didn’t say anything to each other, they were barely even looking at each other, but Michael could tell it was something of a domestic scene he wouldn’t admit he’d imagined more than once. Maybe they were in a dorm room, or a house in the suburbs, or a crowded apartment with twelve other roommates, but they were together, and tangling their legs between each other as they ate in silence didn’t seem at all invasively intimate, but just normal. 

Michael woke with a cautious smile on his face and a small pit in his stomach.

“I went to sleep at like two last night,” he told Jeremy before unlocking his car. He’d driven over to pick him up, his dream completely vanished from his mind, and he didn’t particularly seem like he was going to crash any time soon, so he figured driving was probably safe. “The drive probably won’t be safe.” He also refused to drink coffee. Just as a general rule. 

Jeremy paused before opening the passenger door, considering his chances. Finally, he shrugged. “Eh, if we die, we die.” He got into the car.

Michael hesitated before opening his own door, still processing Jeremy’s words. “We should probably talk about that,” he promised to no one. 

His casual suicidal tendencies aside, Jeremy didn’t seem too strange this morning. Which was probably good. Any of the times he’d sat in the passenger seat of Michael’s car as he pulled out of Jeremy’s driveway and onto the street, as he did now, bouncing his leg up and down as he rested his elbow on the door and his head in his hand, Michael didn’t know exactly what to talk about; if he should bring his behaviour up and ask if he was okay or just barrel through and ignore it. He supposed that on a day like this, where there was no immediate stress indicators, Michael would just bring up something he did last night, in the twelve short hours where Michael and Jeremy were actually separated from each other. Except he couldn’t exactly bring up his half-assed research on how to fix a friendship. 

He _could_ talk about everything that happened, ask what the SQUIP really did to Jeremy and maybe talk about what they did to each other, but the thought made him want to swerve the car off the nearest cliff.

So if he didn’t want him and Jeremy to die at his hands, all he needed to do was just not talk about anything. At all. 

Simple.

And there were times when it seemed as if Jeremy was about to say something, making Michael’s mind reel with possibilities each time: he could be apologising, asking Michael to step up and apologise himself, or explaining in excruciating detail each and every thought and feeling he had about the whole ordeal to Michael without even expecting him to do any of the emotional heavy lifting in return — and then Michael would remember that they’re all just fantasies as Jeremy would snap his mouth shut, saying nothing and letting the (awkward?) silence continue. Maybe he was mirroring Michael. 

Or maybe Michael was just projecting.

He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, waiting for the light to change. 

And _this_ would have been about the time along the car ride that they would have spoken to each other by. Instead the air went unbroken, filled not even with the respite of music to cover up their hesitations — Michael knew Jeremy hated listening to music first thing in the morning. So instead the car was filled with the silence of two people getting a ride together to at least keep up appearances that they still cared about each other. 

That wasn’t fair. Michael obviously stilled cared about Jeremy, if how much he was thinking about him recently was any indication. And if you asked Michael, he would say without a moment’s hesitation that _of course_ Jeremy still cared about him. They’d been best friends for twelve years, it was bit hard to break that trust. 

It was just that a small, grey, oblong pill had managed to dent it. Just a bit. 

And that wasn’t Jeremy’s fault. Michael kept telling himself that to make sure he didn’t fall into a sea of hatred and find himself drowning.

But there was a part of him that was definitely treading water, just to see what it was like. Consciously, he knew that part of him probably shouldn’t even exist, but in the back of his mind, he desperately wanted to give in to it.

“Green light.”

Somehow it was Jeremy’s voice, reminding him casually of the road rules, rather than the cacophony of horns blaring behind him that snapped him out of his self-indulgent experimentation of toying with his hatred, and made him actually put his foot on the accelerator. He mumbled an apology to Jeremy.

“I know you told me before getting into the car that you shouldn’t be driving, but are you sure you should be driving?”

Michael laughed. “Probably not.” This was the longest conversation they’d had in hours. Which was saying something, for them. “I mean, don’t worry; I probably won’t get us killed.”

Jeremy shrugged. “Go for it all you want, I have Mr Gretch first period.”

Michael bit his lip, chancing a quick glance at Jeremy as he kept his foot steady on the accelerator. “I think dealing with Gretch and math is probably a bit more palatable then dying, right?” He said it with a slight laugh at the end, and he knew as soon as it left his mouth that Jeremy could tell it was fake. 

He hadn’t planned on really bringing anything up this morning, at all, if not to avoid the racing heart which was now going free reign in his chest, probably pumping too much or not enough blood around his body. And judging from the steady rise of lightheadedness he was detecting, the racing was probably not a good business model for his heart after all. The pit he had felt waking up had started to grow ever so slightly, and he avoided swallowing to ease his dry throat. He wouldn’t give in immediately to cliches.

He shouldn’t have hinted at even a little bit of a serious talk with Jeremy. He felt as if a rug had been pulled out from underneath him, which was probably not the best thing to feel when driving with a passenger. He should have left Jeremy’s casual suicidal ideation alone. It probably wasn’t even serious. Frankly, he’d be surprised if there was a single student at Middleborough that hadn’t thought about killing themselves at one point in their high school career — hell, even he fit that description. High school was just like that.

That was normal.

“Maybe,” Jeremy said, looking out the window.

They were silent for the rest of the drive. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, reading and writing this: michael’s actions in this fic are toxic and he needs to get over himself so he can address and evaluate what he's doing and actually work to be a better friend for jeremy  
> me, looking at my own life and actions, the very thing this damn fic is based off of: yeah, but…………………that’s different tho
> 
> but real talk idk if i made this clear but wanting to kill yourself in high school is not normal. if you do feel that way you should probably seek help from either a trusted friend or adult, or try your country's suicide hotline. ppl are there to talk to you just have to find them
> 
> ANYWAYS thank you for indulging me in working out all my issues through michael. sorry for projecting onto you so hard mike but what else am i supposed to do? talk to someone? gross
> 
> thanks for reading!!


	4. i never knew you were such a big fan of the arctic monkeys :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i had a goddamn breakdown trying to write some of the other more serious chapters that are to come and im starting to think that maybe using mike and jer as a proxy for working my shit out has just exacerbated things instead of doing whatever i wanted it to achieve in the first place. why couldn’t i have just written a cute and fluffy fic instead of jamming my emotions into these guys. 
> 
> so instead have something thats not gonna make me cry when i try to write it: another car ride scene! set on a different day tho. bc im p sure i meant to write smth like this in the last chapter but i consistently write this thing at 3am so i mean what can u do. also if u expect anything in this fic to be consistent, even tonally, u got another thing coming for u friend. enjoy

“Can you play some music?”

They’d barely left Jeremy’s street when Michael heard him speak up from the passenger seat, and when he looked at him, he wasn’t really sure if he’d even said anything in the first place. Jeremy blinked, looking at Michael expectantly. 

“I…thought you liked the quiet.” Jeremy had once said that any loud or long noises too early in the day would ‘break’ the morning. They’d been, like, seven at the time, but there was often something about children’s metaphors that could explain emotions better than anything else. Jeremy had later said that he’d need to ease into the day with the quiet of morning before everything got too loud, or he’d be in a pretty shitty mood for the rest of the day. They were probably thirteen when he’d said that. Michael still wasn’t entirely sure he could explain word for word how Jeremy felt, or even entirely understand it, but he’d try his best to not break any mornings for Jeremy before the day started.

Jeremy almost seemed taken aback, and suddenly he was looking out the windscreen, as if searching for a reply far in the distance. He shrugged. “You like music,” he settled on.

Michael snorted. “Yes, I do tend to enjoy series of organised sounds from time to time. Thank you, Jeremiah.”

Even though Michael couldn’t see him, he knew Jeremy rolled his eyes. He smiled. 

“Okay, just put some music on.” He could hear Jeremy’s smile in his words, which only served to make his own smile grow more.

Michael considered it for a moment, before ultimately deciding to actually follow the road rules. “I’m driving, just put yours on.” Besides, Jeremy was the one to suggest it in the first place.

Jeremy seemed to pause. Michael glanced at him for a second, and he looked like he was just left alone in an empty room with a long list of confusing instructions and had no idea what to do, as if no one had ever asked him to put on his own playlist before. “Um…”

“You do have music on your phone, don’t you?” He felt like he would have known by now if Jeremy didn’t.

“I do! I just…” He shook his head, fishing his phone out of his pocket. “Nothing.”

Michael didn’t know what that meant, and to be perfectly honest, it was a bit too early in the morning for him to start analysing it. Or caring about it. 

Jeremy plugged his phone into the aux socket and started scrolling through whatever music app he had on his phone. Even though Michael had his eyes on the road, whenever he stole a quick glance he could see Jeremy had angled the phone slightly away from him. Huh. Weird.

Or maybe he was just being paranoid and Jeremy was holding his phone normally. Yeah, probably. 

After thirty or so more seconds of silence and Jeremy’s indecision, Michael couldn’t take it much longer. “Did you wanna listen to music or not?” At this rate they’d probably only fit in three songs before they reached school. 

“Yes, hold on,” Jeremy said, biting his lip. His thumb seemed to hover over two options — songs? albums? bands? Michael couldn’t see — going back and forth, unable to decide which one. Before Michael could say _holy shit, it’s not that deep,_ Jeremy tapped on one with resolution. 

Apparently that resolve wasn’t that strong because not even after three seconds had passed he changed his mind, returning to the two options and taking the one he had neglected earlier. He sat back in his seat with a heavy sigh, resting his phone in his lap. Well, it wasn’t much of a ‘rest’ considering the said leg was bouncing up and down with jitters. 

Before long Michael heard a steady drumbeat and familiar riff fill his car. Jeremy’s restless leg started to bounce in time, but he was still taking breaths that were probably larger than necessary. 

“Arctic Monkeys?” Michael asked. 

Jeremy nodded. 

 _Do I Wanna Know_ started its verse off with question after question that, had they been asked legitimately, made Michael want to kick in his trusty mechanism of tuning everything out and rolling his eyes. But it was a nice enough song that he enjoyed, so he opted to actually listen to it, at least for the drive. 

In reality he hadn’t heard the song in at least a few years, and had no idea that Jeremy was still listening to it. It brought back vague memories from the summer before freshman year, a hazy scene of the two of them in one of their houses, barely listening to the song as it played in the background and instead fantasising about what high school would be like. 

Jeremy had been psyched. Michael couldn’t really understand why at the time, and if he was honest, he probably still didn’t understand. Something about it being a ‘new start’?

Michael cringed, because he knew exactly how he’d reacted. He’d told Jeremy with confidence that nothing would change between anyone at school — that high school would probably pan out exactly like middle school had, and would be nothing like what it was in the movies.

Just because he’d turned out to be right didn’t make him feel any less gross about his past pretentiousness. 

The lyrics of the song were all coming back to him now, and he didn’t realise how much he’d remembered until he was mouthing the pre-chorus under his breath with complete accuracy.

_Do I wanna know if this feeling flows both ways?_

He couldn’t remember what he first thought of the song or its lyrics, but it probably wasn’t what felt like a spike through his heart and lungs as he started tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, if only to ease the tingling feeling that was now starting to go through them. Then again, when he first heard it, he probably didn’t have as many gay thoughts. Specifically concerning Jeremy.

He exhaled. Just because Jeremy put the song on didn’t mean he was somehow trying to send Michael a message that he liked him or anything. That was a pretty weird and roundabout way of doing things.

Nevermind. Jeremy could definitely be doing that. 

But he wasn’t. Because it wasn’t like he liked Michael or anything. It was just a good song. So when the chorus came, he could hardly stop himself from singing.

“Crawling back to you…” There was something about singing first thing in the morning, when your voice was still heavy with sleep and deeper than usual that made the extra effort of singing rather than talking all the more worth it as your vocal chords woke up. Michael loved it. “Ever thought of calling when you’ve had a few? ‘Cause I always do…” He tried not to think of Jeremy at all, instead focusing on the feeling his throat was making as he sang. He was getting pretty into the song now, bopping his head to the beat. Jeremy was, too, and Michael didn’t even bother to stop the smile from forming on his face. “Maybe I’m too busy being yours to fall for somebody new…” Don’t think about him. Stop thinking about him! 

For Christ’s sake, it wasn’t like he was ever ‘Jeremy’s’ at any point, anyway. He didn’t even know if he liked Jeremy!

(His racing heart and the fact that he kept thinking that maybe Jeremy really _did_ choose this song for a reason told him otherwise, but ignoring his feelings instead of giving into whatever they were doing to him now felt like the easier option. Which didn’t really mean anything, because his feelings were going to do whatever the hell they pleased despite what Michael kept telling himself.)

Fuck. Whatever, just focus on singing and forget that Jeremy is even in the car. It was probably the least taxing decision on Michael’s heart right now. 

“Now I’ve thought it through. Crawling back to you…”

Michael sang more or less the rest of the song as it played out in the car, and considering how flustered the chorus alone got him it was probably a good thing that he zoned out for most of it and let whatever memories from however many years ago take over for the lyrics. Jeremy may have joined in at some point in another chorus, too, but he had always made sure his singing wasn’t anything much more than a hum, and he had seemed a bit more jittery today than usual. Maybe it was the music. 

As the song ended he saw Jeremy in his peripheral fumbling with his phone for a second. Apparently he wasn’t fast enough to do what he wanted, because a mellow, soft beat started playing for a few bars before it got cut off by Jeremy quickly changing the song.

“What song was that?”

Jeremy placed his phone down and wiped his palms on his jeans. “Uh, it was… _Crush_. By…Yuna?” He sounded unsure, but was evidently not willing to pick up his phone to check. Maybe he didn’t trust his hands to not sit still long enough to not accidentally change it back.

“Do I know that song?” The title honestly didn’t do anything to help Michael, but the beat sounded a little familiar. Jeremy shrugged. “Can we listen to it?”

Michael could blame the cold morning on Jeremy’s slightly pink cheeks. “Uh, I wan— I like this song.” So, that was a no.

It didn’t bother Michael too much; he could always look up the song later. Jeremy was now playing a Weezer song that Michael couldn’t remember the name of, but would probably recognise by the time the chorus came. It was a lot more upbeat than the Arctic Monkeys (he supposed most Weezer songs probably were) and the contrast he got from the two songs (and the small snippet of the third) sent him on a weird path of wondering what on earth Jeremy listened to when he was under the influence of the SQUIP. 

Probably whatever was currently playing on the radio. Or did the SQUIP even control that type of thing? Maybe it just made suggestions for trivial stuff like that — like a list of the current top forty hits, or something. Surely what music Jeremy listened to couldn’t have had that much an effect on his popularity?

Then he remembered Jeremy showing up to school one day wearing a shirt with Eminem on it. He couldn’t remember if it had been before or after or around the time that he’d died, but either way, he supposed that answered that question. 

But he still wasn’t even entirely sure how the SQUIP functioned. Maybe if he and Jeremy ever got around to acknowledging that it was a thing that actually happened, maybe he could ask. Would Jeremy even be okay to talk about all that again, though?

The chorus of the song broke Michael out of his reverie as it steered into a heavier sound and its title popped into Michael’s head, finally: _Da Vinci_. He sighed as it played along, and he started thinking again that maybe Jeremy really was handpicking these songs for Michael, because the last two lines of the chorus seemed to mock him from afar and his choice to sing instead of talk:

_I’m at a loss for words, I’m at a loss for words…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what happens in this chapter you ask?? havent got a goddamn clue. i just wanted a break™
> 
> but actually ik by now yall r Aware that this is me vomiting my life onto mike and jer but. this is a direct callout. a play by play of one of my memories. down to the second. if u cant think of anything new then just recount ur life. fuck it


	5. michael makes a WHAT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> based on that one post. you know the one. its like 1am i cant find it someone link it if u know what im talking abt pls im begging u
> 
> also idk how to write different texting styles so have fun just reading me talk to myself for a whole chapter i guess
> 
> Also also Pay Attention to those time stamps bc those are literally the only thing i put effort into when writing this whole fic PLS

**jerbear 11:06pm**

Wait

 

**Gay Loser™ 11:06pm**

what

 

**jerbear 11:07pm**

Am I remembering this wrong

 

**Gay Loser™ 11:07pm**

what??

 

**jerbear 11:07pm**

It’s been a month and I’ve been hospitalized for like a good week of that

My memory might be lying to me

 

**Gay Loser™ 11:07pm**

??? bitch What

 

**jerbear 11:08pm**

At the play

 

**Gay Loser™ 11:08pm**

right

 

**jerbear 11:08pm**

Did

Did you say ‘Michael makes an entrance’???? 

Or am I wildly wrong

 

**jerbear 11:10pm**

Michael

 

**jerbear 11:11pm**

Hello

 

**jerbear 11:19pm**

Did you or did you not make an entrance

 

**jerbear 11:31pm**

Are you dead?

 

**jerbear 11:46pm**

Pls

 

**Gay Loser™ 11:58pm**

NO im not dead i just kinda hoped ud forgotten abt that lmao

 

**Gay Loser™ 11:59pm**

i was stoned off my ass dont @ me

 

**jerbear 12:07am**

Holy shit

HOLY SHIT

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:09am**

i said DONT @ me

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:10am**

please

for once in ur life GOD just let me live

 

**jerbear 12:10am**

Absolutely not

Are you kidding

‘Michael makes an entrance’??

 

**jerbear 12:11am**

I mean

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:11am**

stop

 

**jerbear 12:11am**

Pls tell me you planned that

Third person and everything wow

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:12am**

jeremy!! i saved ur life!!!

 

**jerbear 12:12am**

Yeah and right before that you said Michael makes an entrance

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:12am**

and i was also super high!!

pleassseeeeee shut up ur Actually killing me

 

**jerbear 12:13am**

Then perish

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:14am**

Jeremy

 

**jerbear 12:14am**

Michael

Makes an entrance

 

**jerbear 12:17am**

I can’t believe you’re actually leaving me on read

 

**jerbear 12:21am**

I hope you know that every single time I’ve written out Michael makes an entrance, including that one, I’ve had to stop myself from sending ‘Michael makes and entrance’

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:27am**

good

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:28am**

u deserve it

its karma for all this suffering ur putting me thru

 

**jerbear 12:28am**

Wow

You would think that someone who made an entrance for me would be a little less rude

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:29am**

GOD FUKCIGNJKLSGHJBNSDF

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:30am**

Had It Not Been For The Laws Of This Land, I Would Have Slaughtered You.

 

**jerbear 12:32am**

Come over and kill me now if you’re not a coward

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:35am**

i would but the moment i step thru the door ull be shouting michael makes an entrance

 

**jerbear 12:41am**

Damn you know me so well

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:45am**

cant have u waking up the entire street just bc u wanna roast me

 

**jerbear 12:46am**

Nah man get the whole neighbourhood over

It’s the annual barbecue

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:46am**

at one in the morning

 

**jerbear 12:46am**

Yeah man

That’s when you know the meat’s good

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:48am**

hmmmm not sure if u should say things like that

 

**jerbear 12:49am**

Like what

 

**jerbear 12:51am**

??

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:53am**

??? nothing nvm omg

gfdsds i dont think you know how the english language works but Okay

 

**jerbear 12:53am**

???? Okay

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:53am**

also its like Actually one am u need to sleep

 

**jerbear 12:54am**

Spoken like someone who isn’t also up at one am

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:55am**

Bruh im serious ur walking tomorrow remember

 

**jerbear 12:55am**

UGH

 

**jerbear 12:56am**

Fuck you and your piece of shit car

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:56am**

dont take this out on my car

 

**jerbear 12:57am**

Fine fuck you then

Why even bother taking your car to the shop

 

**Gay Loser™ 12:57am**

?? itll die if i dont, jeremy

go to sleep

 

**jerbear 12:58am**

You’re the one keeping me up

 

**jerbear 12:59am**

With all your entrances and whatnot

 

**Gay Loser™ 1:01am**

Dude that was entirely ur fault

if ud just forgotten that like a normal person we wouldnt be in this situation rn

sleep!!

its past one am

 

**jerbear 1:02am**

I’m trying!! You’re blowing up my phone damn

 

**Gay Loser™ 1:02am**

Okay Sorry Good Night

 

**jerbear 1:02am**

Night

 

**jerbear 2:43am**

I’m sorry it’s been haunting me I Cannot get over Michael makes an entrance

 

**Gay Loser™ 2:56am**

go the fuck to sleep

* * *

 

Michael was being a little bit hypocritical for insisting that Jeremy slept, but he felt that was allowed in taking care of your best friend. It was currently 3:04 AM and Michael was scrolling back through his conversation with Jeremy for about the fiftieth time, trying his hardest to see the meaning behind those grey bubbles and hoping to god Jeremy didn’t find any meaning behind his.

Okay, so he brought up the play. That’s…good, right? Progress, or something? If they’d reached the point where they could bring it up casually, even if it was to poke fun at Michael, that probably meant they were one step closer to it being easier to actually discuss it. Like, properly. 

The thought made Michael want to crawl into a hole to never be seen again. 

He scrolled back through their conversation. Future serious discussions aside, it still brought a smile to his face that hadn’t been there for a while. It was weird, but threatening murder and saying ‘fuck you’ to each other was really, _really_ comforting after weeks of not being able to say anything. Like Michael didn’t know if that sort of thing was still on the table for them anymore. 

Thank god it was, though, because that meant he could let his conscious at ease that if he ever let a joking ‘I hate you’ slip to Jeremy, whether it’d be after a horrendous pun or after he got defeated in whatever game that pitted them against each other, he wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not Jeremy thought it was genuine. 

And maybe he wouldn’t worry if it really was genuine, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys listen being able to tell ur friends to fuck off and die is Honestly So Important and fuckn sucks when u cant


	6. gc doesn’t stand for group chat it stands for gladiator confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter double whammy bc its currently 1am and u best believe i just shat this out w/out proofreading

Throughout his high school years, Michael had prided himself on not caring about what any body else thought of him. Not even Jeremy. 

Sure, it was originally fuelled in part by this sort of pretentious, slightly self-important air he held about himself, but he’d argue that it had led to him being much more happier in general than a vast majority of peers anyway, and besides, his reasoning had shifted along the way from his younger, short-sighted view of ‘none of these people know me and it’s their loss’ to what he would now define as an at least somewhat more matured view of ‘literally none of this will matter in less than a decade, so there’s not much use in proving yourself to people who don’t matter.’ He understood, for the most part, that thinking yourself better than the popular kids just because you ‘got’ how high school worked made you no better than the popular kids who thought the exact same thing. They were all in the same boat, probably about to capsize, and it wasn’t as if any of them were Olympic swimmers.

Jeremy didn’t really seem to get the whole ‘just be you for you and don’t bother wasting energy on the people who you won’t even be talking to after the next two years’ thing, and Michael almost couldn’t understand how he hadn’t given up on trying to combat it.

Almost. 

Michael was pretty sure it was human nature to want to be included — something about humanity’s distant ancestors in the Stone Age having to be a part of a pack in order to survive — so despite the fact that he based a good third of his personality on not caring what other people thought about him, he felt it wasn’t all too shameful if he fell back on those base instincts of fearing certain death if he got excluded.

In all honesty, it made him feel like shit. 

That was more or less the main reason that he reached this level of apathy. If you didn’t care about other people, the fact that they didn’t care about you either just hurt a lot less. Avoiding that sting of loneliness was good reason to make him believe he was better than anyone for not expending any effort on them.

Realising that he maybe did care a little more about what people thought of him than he would like to admit wasn’t something he liked to delve into often, but he’d certainly had lapses. If only being able to remember snapshots of Jake’s Halloween party was any indication, he’d definitely gone into some weird spiral of overthinking things that’d he’d eventually repressed deep in his memory.

Which had probably kicked off his newest trend of overthinking just about everything. 

And he was this close to ignoring everything altogether, if only to never have to deal with that unfamiliar queasiness in his gut that was slowly becoming more familiar, but before he could make any conscious decisions on the matter, his phone went off. 

Once he picked it up to see the notification, he groaned internally. 

Group chats were a horrifying thing. 

Especially considering he was seemingly now fully engaged in this idea that other people and their opinions of him suddenly mattered, and where if he’d made a fool of himself or pushed new potential friends away a couple of years ago, he’d only shrug at the thought, but now it seemed as awful an idea as eating raw chicken. A couple of years ago the worst thing a group chat could be (provided he was in one, which, let’s be real, was _not_ often) was annoying at all the notifications popping up for a conversation he wouldn’t read. Now, it felt like it held his social life or death in the balance. Was this what most kids felt like in high school? If so, it was fucking awful. He looked at the notifications without actually opening the chat. 

Brooke was saying something about all of them hanging out together soon. Jeremy was agreeing, and so was Christine and Jake. Michael could vaguely remember that Chloe, Rich and Jenna were also a part of this group chat, but they hadn't responded yet. 

God. What a weird fucking group of people. It’d make more sense if maybe they were all stuck together in some group project that forced them all to communicate outside of school, and that maybe an unlikely friendship blossomed from there, or some plot that was more grounded like that; but in reality it took the shit storm that was the play for them to all gravitate somewhat subconsciously towards each other despite where they stood even a few months ago. 

Michael mostly thought of it as some sort of support group to help each other with what they all went through, but as far as he knew, no one ever really talked about SQUIPs or what happened at the play. Which was absolutely fine by him, but it just felt a bit weird knowing they all had this _thing_ hanging over their heads that none of them ever really seemed to want to talk about. 

But then, he was being hypocritical. Avoiding the necessary was basically trademarked by him. 

He opened the group chat with a sigh that was more felt by his soul than expressed with his lungs and vocal chords, waiting as long as he could before it was still appropriate for him to reply. 

Jeremy was going with them. For lunch and ‘whatever’ at the mall, it seemed. ‘Whatever’ probably consisted of just walking around to various stores as each member of the group suddenly remembered something they needed to buy, mindlessly shifting from one end of the shopping centre to the other. Why couldn’t they just go to someone’s house and play video games? That surely would have been a much better way to spend their time. 

Still, if Jeremy was going they probably expected Michael to go, too. It was sort of weird that even though they’d formed this unofficial group they still fell into the lower sub-sections of the social hierarchy left over from the previous two and a half years of battering it into place. And it was also sort of weird that he felt the need to appease those expectations of him going. The very idea of hanging out with these people despite not really knowing how to was enough to make him put his phone down and not even want to think about the existence of the group chat. And yet, he picked it up again when the thought of seeming anti-social to them crossed his mind, and suddenly he was defying his whole persona he’d built around himself for all of high school of not caring what other people thought and not wanting to reach out to others because he was perfectly comfortable with just him and Jeremy — hell, even just by himself — and maybe even for a second, he felt like he actually wanted to hang out with them. 

He told the group chat he’d be free. Well, he actually said ‘ye im down’.

He didn’t know whether he should be glad that it seemed like he could fit safely within a new group of friends or if should be berating himself for wanting to fit in so readily. 

Ugh. There comes that pretentious freshman mindset again. 

He put his phone down. The whole group chat thing was making him lose his mind. Maybe Netflix could help him ease it just a little. Everything else except whatever his current escape show was could wait.


	7. was i not supposed to say that out loud?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe it's okay to get deep every once in a while.

Apparently, over the last few months, Michael’s brain had developed a brand-new hit game show called _Why Am I Pissed At Jeremy Today?_ which consisted solely of a single wheel turn, whose options alternated between ‘SQUIP bullshit’ and ‘I’m alone and angry’.

Today the wheel landed on the latter option. 

Perhaps that wasn’t entirely accurate, or even fair to simplify the situation like that, but that was ultimately what it boiled down to — he wasn’t _technically_ alone, he had Brooke, but then, that was it. He was alone with Brooke. And it was kind of insanely awkward. 

It was a bit of a wonder that Michael had only just now recognised this game that his brain was playing, but he could understand why it had taken off so well — the oversimplification of his problems, specifically with Jeremy, offered a great chance for him to sweep them under the rug and a promise to not overly exert himself on lifting any emotional weight that would come with actually identifying what was wrong and pinning it all on someone else. Which was probably, definitely, absolutely unfair on Jeremy.

But what wasn’t fair on Michael was the fact that Jeremy wasn’t here. 

And sure, Michael should _maybe_ address the way he thinks about Jeremy now (still teetering on the edge of love/hate — was that whole ultimatum indicative of some larger issue here? Michael didn’t want to think about it)and _maybe_ it would actually solve everything he’s been stressing about — _what’s happening with me and Jeremy? What’s happening with me and other people? What’s happening with Jeremy and other people?_ — if he ever just sat down and actually _talked_ it through with Jeremy, but right now he was a bit more focused on the deathly still air hanging, almost like a limp cadaver, between him and Brooke right now as the others were still showing up. 

They’d decided to go out to the mall — a simple enough place for them to hang in the infant stages of their new group — and either go out to the adjoining park for a picnic after or go and see the latest blockbuster. He couldn’t remember who in the group chat had decided that they should just ‘play it by ear,’ for all he knew it could have been him, but he sort of resented them because it created this laid-back atmosphere surrounding the whole thing, which meant not all of them were really going to show up on time.

And Michael didn’t know why he was suddenly not okay with that, and why he was suddenly not okay with staying with Brooke alone. This should be an easy affair: he’d never really cared too much about how awkward a conversation (or lack thereof, in this case with Brooke) with someone else could be, or if he never made an effort to engage with them. 

But now he had this weird fear of pleasing these people who were sort of his friends but not really yet — and they’d only _definitely_ become his friends if he stopped acting so weird around them. He could use the excuse that they themselves, and this sudden new attention from people he’d never spoken to before, were the reason for him being weird — and the fact that he didn’t even really know if he wanted to be friends with them. It’d be easier if he could just take how he acts around Jeremy (really, his only actual friend) and apply it to them, but he didn’t even know how to act around _him_ anymore. 

And if Michael kept overthinking like this he was definitely going to pass out right in front of Brooke.

“Are you alright?” Brooke asked.

“Huh?” Apparently she could tell, at least somewhat, that he wasn’t entirely present right now. 

“You don’t seem entirely present right now. You almost ran into that trashcan.” She gestured behind her at the bin that Michael couldn’t remember almost tripping over not five seconds ago. 

They’d been walking from one side of the mall to the other, to their decided-upon meeting place in the food court. It was already in view, and the distinct lack of any other members of the group had sent Michael into his unfamiliar-but-slowly-becoming-more-familiar overthinking process regarding his fucked feelings towards Jeremy. 

“Oh.” He didn’t really know what to say except the obvious. “I wasn’t paying attention.” He turned to her. “Sorry, I was sort of thinking about something else.”

She gave a small smile, shrugging slightly. “’S’Fine.” She turned to keep walking and Michael followed. 

He took a deep breath. He had no idea what to say now. He should probably say something, right? It didn’t necessarily feel like an invitation to start a conversation, but if they didn’t keep one up it’d just perpetuate this awkward air around them. Which Michael was still trying to wrap his head around why he even cared at all about it. 

“Are you usually in your own head like that?” Brooke, thankfully, jumped at the chance to keep what little of a conversation they had going, no doubt also suffering under the oppressive, awkward air surrounding the two of them. 

Unfortunately, Michael didn’t really know how to answer her question. He gave what he hoped was an unsure smile, but it probably turned out to look more like a pained grimace. “Sort of? I guess. That’s probably just how I navigate…life. Don’t pay attention and hope nothing goes wrong. At any given moment I probably have like a twenty three per cent awareness of what’s happening.”

She gave a small chuckle, which was probably a good sign. “You’re one of those people who really just keep to themselves, huh? And you don’t really care what other people are doing.”

It was more of a statement than a question, like Brooke had just confidently given her reading on Michael’s personality; and he wished he could say she was right, but recently he could hardly tell who he was anymore. He shrugged, stalling for how on earth he would articulate this to her, even if the words might not be entirely true. “I’m…not hugely observant of others, yeah. I just kinda let people do their own thing and don’t get in the way.”

Brooke nodded, digesting his words. “I respect that.”

For instance, in any other year of his life Michael would not have cared either way if Brooke approved of his understanding of his social status, but hearing her accept it now sent a small twinge of affection across his heartstrings. Maybe they really could be friends. 

“Thanks,” he smiled. Maybe it was nice caring what other people thought. “I mean, out of the people in our grade, I probably know the names of, like, sixty people. I didn’t even know your name until Jeremy introduced us to each other.” He chuckled. 

Brooke paused. “And…that’s because you don’t pay attention to other people?”

Michael paused, too. Was he about to ruin this? “Well, I…We didn’t ever talk before. I think this is the first time I’ve actually seen you outside of school. There wasn’t really any point in knowing…” Yeah, he was royally screwing this up. Caring what other people thought sucked, actually, because now he cared whether or not Brooke was offended by this. And it felt like shit. 

Brooke tilted her head, considering it. “I knew yours. Before Jeremy introduced us, I mean. I knew your name.”

That twinge of affection was gone. Now it was replaced by whatever it felt like when you messed something up before you even got the chance to get started. And a little bit of creeped out, because for all of his reasons above, Michael could think of no valid justification as to why Brooke had known his name before this very month. “You did?”

“We had English together in year eight. That’s the ‘official’ reason, anyway,” she smiled, leaving the air quotes around ‘official’.

“We did? Wait, ‘official’?” He mimicked her air quotes. 

“Well…” She chuckled, looking down and hiding her face behind her hair. Through the small gaps in the waterfall of gold Michael could see her trying to bite away a small smile on her lips, looking away bashfully. She clasped her hands behind her back, shrugging. “I find it… _beneficial_ ,” she flipped her hair out of her face, possibly just for the effect, “to know the names of my crush’s friends. Or, friend.” She started walking at a much brisker pace away from Michael, leaving him to figure it out for himself.

“Wait,” he caught up with her. “Jeremy?” She didn’t nod, or even so much as react, but kept her bottom lip squarely between her teeth to ease her forming smile. “You have a crush on Jeremy?”

She put a hand up as if to stop Michael from getting too far ahead of himself. “ _Had_ a crush on Jeremy. From, like…freshman year till…” She shrugged. “This year.”

He ignored the fact that he could probably guess why she stopped having a crush on him this year. “Freshman year? Why didn’t you say anything to him?”

She paused.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “You know how it is, you have a crush on someone for so long that it almost gets exhausting. At one point you sort of just start resenting them for not noticing you already.” She chuckled, clearly not serious.

But, shit. Despite her tone Michael couldn’t help but take in her words genuinely — was that what Michael was feeling?

Shit.

Oh, shit.

Shit, shit, _shit._

Michael internally groaned. That wasn’t it, was it?

No. It couldn’t be, right?

There was _no way_ he was feeling this weird sort of resentment feeling towards Jeremy because of some petty crush that he wasn’t even sure of the existence of, right? Sure, pining could be pretty heartbreaking at points, but if he’d come to the conclusion of falling into a pit of this disgusting hatred instead of actually dealing with any romantic feelings he had then he’d consider himself to have officially reached a new low. It seemed almost lazy to hate Jeremy for a reason like that. Besides, he had better reasons. 

Sort of.

Well, he definitely _told_ himself he had better reasons, but he wasn’t about to go dissecting them right now.

(They probably had just about the same integrity as the ‘I hate you for not liking me back’ theory. Michael wouldn’t openly admit this to himself, but the thought made him feel sick nonetheless.)

“Anyways! No one knows about that.” Brooke was pulling her lips together in a way that suggested to Michael that maybe she hadn’t intended on telling him all of that. 

“Oh. You don’t need to worry. I won’t tell anyone that you used to like Jeremy.”

Brooke chuckled despite herself. “I know it’s a weird thing to worry about. Like, even though we dated, it’s still—”

“Wait what?” Michael could almost hear the record scratch in the middle of the conversation. He searched Brooke’s eyes for any sign that she could be joking. “You and Jeremy dated?”

Brooke now seemed to be scrutinising Michael in the same way he had just been, as if she couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Yes,” she said slowly, “like, last month. Aren’t you guys friends? I thought…”

Michael knew that Brooke was probably coming to her own conclusions right about now, but he couldn’t really focus on anything else except the fact that he had apparently missed out on an entire goddamn _girlfriend_ in Jeremy’s life and had only found out a month later from an offhanded comment from the girl herself. 

“We are friends,” Michael said, if only to interrupt his impending overthinking. “We’re friends. Just…not as much last month, I guess.”

“Last month…yeah.”

“Yeah, that whole…SQUIP bullshit.”

Brooke didn’t say anything for a second, and Michael, in a flash, was assaulted with the memory of Brooke’s near lifeless body stumbling in tandem with Chloe’s towards him and Jeremy, the backstage lighting throwing odd angles across their faces and in their eyes. 

_Jesus Christ._

There was silence between them again, and Michael was gripped with everything he’d been trying to block out for the last month.

“Fuck’s sake,” he breathed. Brooke stayed silent. “Screw all that. That fucking pill.”

Brooke laughed sourly. 

“Oh my god. What did it _say_ to you guys?” It wasn’t exactly the best question to ask at the moment, or even for a while, but it was the first thing to slip through his lips. 

They stopped walking, not on any conscious decision, it seemed, but more of a natural slow towards a stop in front of the mall’s KFC, just far enough away from the counter to appear as though they were considering the menu’s options. 

“Jeremy didn’t tell you?” The way Brooke asked, it almost seems as though they could have still been talking about their brief dating period, not a psychotic pill that nearly took over the entire school. 

Michael considered Brooke for a second. 

Her SQUIP had to have said _something_ insane to get her to agree to all that zombie-ing around. Brooke’s a smart girl. She wouldn’t have just said yes. That was the deal with the whole thing, right? The SQUIPs were voluntary? She’d still have to agree, right?

And then he remembered her. Backstage at the play. 

God. 

She wouldn’t have wanted that. 

“Sorry.”

“Why are you apologising?”

Michael blinked. What else could he do except apologise? “Uh, I don’t know. Jeremy—”

“Brooke! Mike!” A voice called out from somewhere else in the food court. In front of the Sbarro Jake stood, his hand cupping his mouth before waving them over, next to a slightly flustered Christine. She turned to him, probably saying something about how they could’e just walked over. Jake shrugged, smiling. 

Michael cleared his throat. “Wow, sorry to get deep all of a sudden,” he chuckled.

They started making their way over to the Sbarro. Brooke shrugged. “Eh, it’s probably healthy to get deep every once and a while. Look back on everything you’ve done. Cleanse the soul.”

Michael hummed. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

He smiled as they reached Jake and Christine, and it was the first one in a while that didn’t feel too forced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo what's up i haven't updated in months bc i kind of forgot this existed and i realised that writing it makes me real sad B)
> 
> which kinda sucks bc i had an ending planned (and mostly written) but seeing this thing to fruition is gonna take more motivation than i actually have so,, who knows. certainly not i
> 
> but thanks for indulging me anyways! sorry for being away for so long lol but alas i cannot guarantee i will be back regularly
> 
> thank you for reading!


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